Fates Of Speckled Gold
by Jathun
Summary: For the fourth time in history; a war breaks out when seven mages from all over the world are chosen to vie for the control of the holy grail - an omnipotent wish granting device. The Tohsaka family, an old line of mages, has hired a woman, a source, to use as an edge in the coming battles. Furthermore, with her help, they are trying to summon a monstrous power to win them the war.


_**Chapter 1**_

_**Overture**_

* * *

_She saw this now, and it was like looking ahead to the very sad ending of a novel, then quickly shutting the book, as if that could keep it from happening. - Meg Wolitzer._

* * *

The King of Babylonia opened his eyes to sunlight.

Golden, apricot and an angry crimson colour, danced across his vision. The sun's warmth held tightly onto his body as it streaked into the chambers with a loving caress. He felt a weariness in his body still from his slumber. A tired lethargy. And the flushed pigments of the sun as it moved across the skies, casting its light upon all it could reach, hurt his head enough to cause a slight groan to bubble out of his throat. The sound a dull, reverberating sigh across the room.

_Wine. _

Maybe he had indulged in just a little bit too much of the delectable wine of his people before he let sleep take ahold. It wouldn't be the first time. Nor certainly the last.

But the excuse sounded hollow as it tugged at the gnawing restlessness within his chest, climbing its way up to his throat. A parasite lodging itself within the confines of his mind.

The King of Babylonia ran a bejeweled hand through the golden hair atop his head.

_Wine, indeed…_

He suppressed a yawn.

_No._

As unseemly as it was admitting to it; this acute fatigue was something else entirely. He was not nursing the aftereffects of drunkenness. It took far more than the mere three cups he had relished in before his slumber to dull his regal mind. And the heat… Well, the heat bothered him about as much as a faint wind from the west would. It could smell of salt water. And it could stir his hair. But it was never more than a single thought - forgotten as soon as it came.

Of course, no wine, nor heat, could ever disturb the king to such a state. He would have to be a sorry king indeed for that to be the case. Instead it was something far more malicious which burned at his insides and left him hollow. It was spiteful. And wicked. A curse sent by the gods and goddesses he had scorned in the past.

He; the King of Babylonia.

Protector of Uruk.

First of His Name.

The Son of the Goddess Ninsun.

The Ruler of All Humanity

The King of All Heroes.

He; King Gilgamesh...

...was bored.

Fantastically.

Utterly.

Obnoxiously.

_Bored. _

He wanted to throw something.

It was a frustration unlike anything he had ever felt before.

It gnawed at his bones. It boiled in his blood. There was a fever in his head which would not leave him be. And worst of all was the pit in his stomach which threatened to grow ever larger until it swallowed him whole. He had indulged in wine. He had satiated himself with both men and women. He had admired his most splendid treasures until he once again knew them like the back of his own hand. But nothing...absolutely nothing, could put him at ease.

A faint wind blew in from the windows through the king's chambers. He watched as the air playfully baited the silk drapery hanging above the bedding he lay upon into a dance. It was as graceful as water moving with waves across the sea. However the air didn't smell of saltwater, but of sweet, dusty earth. It came from the southeast then, where the deserts stretched far and wide, and the nights were colder than metal left too long in the shadows. He found the display as dull as watching the clouds move over the heavens. _How unsightly..._

If he wasn't careful, it would make him a husk of a king; this boredom.

* * *

Asha opened her eyes to darkness.

She blinked.

_Nothing..._

It was the purest of blacks which took ahold of her vision; enveloping it in a silent, smothering embrace, and callously had her heart aching even in its drowsy state of half sleep. She saw nothing. A void had opened itself up before her very eyes. Its darkness was of the kind which swallowed everything which showed even the slightest hint of colour, or shape, and left nothing for the onlooker to grasp at. It was horrifyingly lonely.

She shifted. Uncomfortably. Her legs coming free of the thick duvet she hid beneath, and a shudder passed through her body. She felt her nerve endings jolting awake, as through struck by a hundred needles. It was cold. So, _so_, very cold.

Asha buried her face into her pillow. Its softness a small comfort, some slight relief, as it muffled the low groan she let loose through her throat. She wondered if she had her own stupidity to thank. This cold did not come from out of the abyss. It was the fresh, crisp kind which only came into houses through open windows. Open windows, which should not be open.

_It wouldn't be the first time..._

She tossed. Turned. And with a low growl like that of an animal, something which came out of annoyance, she pulled herself out of the warmth of her bedding.

The icy air was upon her exposed skin in an instant. Biting. Numbing. She sucked in a deep breath. Her pajamas provided no warmth whatsoever - a simple t-shirt and underwear was nothing against the elements -, and she was already sensitive enough to the cold. She shivered. But nonetheless began to make her way, fumbling clumsily, towards the place where she knew her window to be. She grasped blindly after the windowsill, the curtains… and found it.

A meager amount of light finally poured into the room.

Asha gripped the curtains she'd pulled aside tightly. She shivered once again. A gust of fresh, icy cold air stung at her face cruelly, and she let a small smile grace her lips. The light which chased away the pure black which had consumed her sight was the blue of the moon and the stars. It wasn't spectacular. Nor very illuminating at all. But it was enough to see. That was all she needed.

She had very much forgotten to close the window; no wonder her sleep was unsettled. It stood ajar, swaying slightly to the tune of the wind, and reflected the quarter moon in a vague glory.

Asha looked out to the courtyard beyond her window.

The Tohsaka residence was an impressive, and noble piece of work. A vast acreage of flat embellished landscape surrounded by a thick, almost impenetrable forest at the foot of a small mountain. At the center of it all; a mansion large enough to be called a castle.

Asha thought it was too much already on the day she arrived. A long four years had passed since then. She had grown accustomed to the wealth and prestige in time - as one did an old scar. But with a childhood of cramped quarters, too many people under the same inadequate roof, and constant, inescapable change, it was hard to shake the small feeling of awe whenever she looked out over it during the quieter moments of existence.

She didn't even really like the courtyard. It was too plain. Too flat. There was too much lavender in the centre of the whole thing. And the statues placed around the walkways and in the middle of the lawn in front of the back entrance might have been functional, but they certainly weren't anything to look at more than once. It flaunted status and worth - with no thought to the weight behind it.

Asha watched as something flickered in the air above the courtyard. A shimmer. A twitch. The slight movement of something without form dancing in controlled patterns which were indistinguishable from the motion of the wind.

Her lips quirked bemusedly.

It was the things which couldn't be seen with the naked eye which were the most interesting about the whole of the estate. The people. Its history. A two-hundred year old chronicle. And all of it drenched in the bittersweet taste of magic.

The Tohsaka family was one of maguses.

It was why she had been hired; though she was no mage.

She was an assistant.

A know-er.

A mana-arbiter.

A source.

It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She knew enough to be able to just slightly make out the concealed magic barriers weaving their way through the air of the courtyard - protecting, repelling intruders, and at the same time allerting its master to their presence. Her senses were wired enough to even be aware of the powerful familiars which prowled the area within the forest - wisps of energy, tense enough to leave a sense of electricity in the air -, they too summoned to further protect their master, and to hunt down the creatures which sought to do them harm. She was capable in the art of _knowing_. But however much she tried. However much she wanted to…

… the art of being a magus was forever out of her reach.

Asha leaned her weight upon the edge of the windowframe. She ignored the cold which cut into her skin and numbed the sense of touch. Her eyes curiously following the slight, almost unseen movements of the barriers as they coiled and curved around the area.

It was impossible for someone like her to learn the practice of magic. Her circuits were too damaged and disorderly. She had too much mana - too much energy. Her output was too much. She risked a backlash every time she pulled at the strings inside of her to let loose anything even resembling a spell or enchantment. It would be a wasted effort to even try to teach her the intricacies of the art. She would implode upon herself before a single incantation left her lips.

But her excess in pure _energy_?

It made her useful.

_It was why she had been hired. _

…

Her stomach twisted in discomfort. She looked down at her hands, a frown pulling at her features, as she began to trace invisible patterns over her own skin. It was normally a warm brown colour, but in the night with the moonlight softly caressing everything it could reach; it seemed more teal than anything.

The feeling in her stomach soured.

She sighed.

Well…

Her employment was going to be terminated soon enough. The reason for her being hired… Her usefulness… It all didn't matter in the end.

Concerning mages… You had to be meticulous when making plans. That went doubly when making deals with such creatures.

They were prideful. Power Hungry. Arrogant.

But she was worse. _She was going to be worse. _She had to be if she expected to survive the coming weeks; when the fires of hell would descend upon this city.

The Grail had already chosen its first participants.

_It's only a matter of time… _

The City of Fuyuki was about to become a battlefield. Its land and people plunged into a war it had no knowledge about. And it was going to be a bloody battle; if this war's history was anything to go by.

The mages called it; _The Holy Grail War. _

It was a war for an omnipotent wish granting device - which they called the _holy grail_. A war fought between seven mages - masters - and seven summoned familiars - servants.

Asha had laughed the first time she had heard about it. It was like the tale of a storybook - though she had found it in an old tome about actual conflicts between mages. It sounded ludicrous.

She didn't laugh anymore.

It was no fantasy. She had seen the command seals. The war was no game to be played and enjoyed by its participants. When it began there would be no respite until its conclusion. It would shed blood. It would kill.

Asha shivered.

The cold was slowly growing to be too much.

If it was that anymore…

The idea of participating in this kind of conflict had her sick to the stomach. She felt as though she was walking into an abyss which wouldn't accept any pleas for relief. It was going to consume her whole.

But…

… She had also made a deal. She had knowingly accepted the role of a pawn. Her participation… Her involvement… For a fee.

The blood flowing through her veins was evidently not worth much however. She couldn't think of anything she wanted more. But it was still laughably cheap for a life.

57 000 000 JPY.

That was the reward for her participation. The reward she had asked for desperately.

Money.

It was a joke.

She was awful.

Greedy.

Selfish.

But at least it was her choice.

…

She just had to make sure she survived.

Asha shakily exhaled. Her fingers quivering. She looked up from her hands and out into the dimness of the courtyard. It seemed so like a graveyard then. The silence was deafening. She had never heard anything so loud.

Asha quickly shut the window. She pulled the curtains close. And watched with a dreadful feeling in her stomach as the darkness consumed her once more.

_It'll be alright, I just have to survive..._

* * *

**_Next Chapter:_**

_Departures. _

_Sought, and found, comforts. _

_And an ancient relic. _

* * *

**_A/N: This chapter is more of a prologue than anything else. But I hope some of you enjoyed it nonetheless. _**

**_More chapters will be coming soon! Please R&R!_**


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